LABOUR Party members in Edinburgh East will next week choose a candidate to replace long-serving MP Gavin Strang when he stands down at the general election.
Dr Strang – who has been in the Commons for nearly 40 years and served as a minister under three Labour prime ministers – will be a hard act to follow.
Labour has a fight on its hands to retain the seat after the SNP snatched the equivalent consti
tuency at the last Scottish Parliament elections.
Six would-be candidates are battling it out for the Westminster nomination and the result next Thursday is expected to be close.
The only thing that's certain is the winner will be a woman – as part of Labour's drive to increase the number of female MPs, the party's national executive committee ruled members in Edinburgh East should choose from an all-women shortlist.
The same policy has caused a rebellion in Airdrie and Shotts, where former home secretary John Reid is standing down at the next election.
Earlier this month, Labour activists in the constituency were reported to be threatening to break away in protest at being ordered to draw up an all-women shortlist. They warned they would not accept a party "apparatchik" being "parachuted in" as candidate.
There was no such backlash in Edinburgh East. The constituency executive did tell party bosses they would prefer an open contest, arguing that to find the best successor to Dr Strang they should be able to consider the widest possible field, but once the decision was made for an all-women shortlist, it was accepted without complaint.
Labour does better than the other parties at electing women to Westminster – 98 at the 2005 election, compared with just 17 Tories and ten Lib Dems, but the Commons is still less than 20 per cent female.
One leading figure in Edinburgh East said: "All-women shortlists are not the perfect solution, but I have yet to hear someone from the other parties say how they are going to promote more women. The only reason the Scottish Parliament was 50-50 men and women was because Labour put up 65 per cent female candidates.
"None of the other parties has any positive mechanism to do this. You can say all-women shortlists is not the best way, but what is the alternative?"
The decision to make Edinburgh East an all-women contest meant disappointment for two local male hopefuls, constituency party chairman Mike Robb and former student leader Rami Okasha.
However, Mr Robb has now been selected as Labour's candidate in Inverness, which the party is aiming to take back from the Liberal Democrats.
An Edinburgh East insider says: "Everyone is really pleased for Mike. It makes it easier to accept the all-women ruling to know that one of ours has been chosen somewhere else."
Former lord provost Lesley Hinds was tipped as favourite to win an all-female selection contest in East, but she decided not to put her name forward, saying she would prefer to try for a seat in the Scottish Parliament.
The field that has emerged includes two sitting councillors, Norma Hart and Angela Blacklock, the city's former housing convener Sheila Gilmore and former parliamentary candidate Catriona Munro, long-serving party activist Karen Doran and Glasgow-based Fozia Parveen.
Around 300 party members are eligible to vote, numbering the contenders in order of preference. Some votes have already been cast by post. The winner will be declared a week tonight.
Insiders say the final outcome will all depend on second and third preferences.
One source says: "There are four front-runners – Norma Hart has impressed with her workrate; Sheila Gilmore has a track record; Karen Doran has managed to engage with a lot of people and spend time talking one-to-one; and Catriona Munro has surprised people with what she has done. The result is going to be really close."
Left-right differences are not playing a key part in the contest, according to the source. "It's about who is going to win here, who will bring a strong presence to the doorstep and work hard. People are focused on winning the seat rather than the nuances of ideology."
Cllr Hart, a former chief executive of Dumfries & Galloway Tourist Board, moved to Edinburgh in 2004 and now works as a consultant for project management organisation Austin Hart.
She was elected councillor for Liberton/Gilmerton in 2007, but was dubbed "Lady Lucan" for failing to turn up at committee meetings. However, she is said to have impressed activists with her hard work during the contest, even producing her own campaign video.
Karen Doran, a long-time activist in the Capital, has worked in the Edinburgh North & Leith constituency office, first for Malcolm Chisholm and then for Mark Lazarowicz, for 17 years.
Politics is in her blood. Her brother is Aberdeen North Labour MP Frank Doran and her sister, Annette Lamont, who died last year, was a Lothian regional councillor and later became a "human shield" in Iraq in protest at the bombings.
Sheila Gilmore was councillor for Inch ward for 16 years and served as the city's housing convener before standing against Tory David McLetchie in Edinburgh Pentlands in the 2007 Holyrood election.
She has also been election agent for Edinburgh South in four Westminster general elections.
Lawyer Catriona Munro, who headed Labour's Lothian list in the 2003 elections for the Scottish Parliament, was not originally seen as a strong contender for Edinburgh East but is said to have impressed party members during the selection contest.
She is the daughter of Ken Munro, the former European Commission representative in Scotland, who was a close friend of John Smith and Donald Dewar.
Whoever emerges as the candidate will have to hit the ground running. The election campaign will begin no later than a year from now and the SNP's George Kerevan has been campaigning in the seat for 18 months already.
